hey there everyone, well im currently working in south dakota and was wondering if i can bring my gun or guns up from texas so i have something to do on the weekends theres a couple of ranges around here and i wouldnt mind spending my free time there instead of my hotel, is there any legal issues with bringing my gun up here though? and would i be able to store it in my hotel room?

Having traveled for a living for over 40 years, usually in a multi state territory of several states or up to 33 states, and carrying up to couple dozen gun samples for 13 of those years, and always a handgun self defense weapon when traveling in my personal car the rest of the time when I was not flying on one of the travel agenda legs, I would NOT be comfortable under ANY circumstances in Leaving a long gun on a daily basis in ANY dailey rental property. Corporate oriented monthly rentals would be another possible question though.

The problem is not necessarily the hotel cleaning staff, especially in a small town mom & pop short term sleep over place where you are a known repeat guest, but IMO there is a concern too in larger chain oriented hotels with their constant turnover in cleaning staff...the problem is the dailey ebb and flow of unknown guests around you, seeing you enter and leave with a cased long gun, or even a local LEO out in the parking lot who does not recognize you except as a "Person of Interest with a gun" ...same song 3rd verse. BEEN HERE Done That...and had several difficult run in's with both large and small town LEO's over the years regardless of the time of day...that needed further instructions from the hotel management or small town local command staff. Yet another reason to go see & meet the local Sheriff or Police Chief to introduce yourself and your intent to hunt locally while in their jurisdiction.

I learned to drive vehicles that were not as easy to access as others , and wound up with a series of Suburban's with clam shell cargo doors that I'd modified access to with a home made cargo area shelf made of 2 layers of screwed together 3/4" plywood shelving supported with 3 2x10's that covered the floor, and kept my guns under that shelf and catalogs & luggage on top of the shelf...and parking the truck backed up to a solid brick or concrete wall, and in same locales, sometimes pulled the coil wire and/or also used a police type wheel lock to secure the truck from being stolen entirely.

The primary idea was to prevent the Suburban's cargo area's easy access via pulling the weather seal strip off the big side window with the 1 1/2" thick shelf across the bed of the cargo area and keeping out of sight all my hyper stealable stuff and make dang difficult to pull stuff out from under the shelf of the truck as possible. I also parked if at all possible in front of my always preferred ground floor room, and looked for exterior lighting shining on the truck.

The only time my hotel room door was tried, was in Longviewe Texas at the old Holiday Inn on east Marshall aka Hwy 80, was not looking to steal my gun samples that earlier had drawn one guys hard stare of attention when he recognized mne from a sales call earlier that day, but where a pimp was selling his girl door to door at 2am by beating on your door ...and the pimp went away with a very sore hand that had come inside my door pushing it to break the safety chain after he could not reach it & much to his surprise came back very bloody with several broken fingers as a bonus for his efforts. The girl wound up over the 2nd story rail on top of another guest's badly damaged hood and winshield of his Lincoln, that had been given my usual room by a new desk clerk, that were both damaged with her fat rear end after she limped off, and I went back to bed with the door secured with a chair lodged under the door handle after the call to the front desk to report the incident and suggest calling a cop to an unbelieving or mebbe complicit desk clerk, with the pimp's lock pick set still stuck in the outside of the lock when the LEO's finally showed up an hour later. I changed hotels & towns for my week at a time long, once every month stay after that.

FWIW I'd go find a local LEO Office, or LGS and ask them to store my long guns if possible, and did that several times if I was going to be in a town for a week or more at a gun show or trade convention, where my out of state tags would stand out. Good LuckRon

Edited by WileyCoyote (07/14/1607:57 AM)Edit Reason: clarity

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